Up to now, an example of utilizing a communication network (Internet for example) under a TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) environment is known as a multilingual translation service of this kind.
FIG. 18 is a block diagram for explaining the architecture of a conventional Web (Web: World Wide Web) site for performing a multilingual translation, and FIG. 19 is a flowchart showing a procedure for performing the multilingual translation by the Web site of FIG. 18. And FIG. 20 is a flowchart showing a procedure for maintenance of the multilingual translation by the Web site of FIG. 18.
In this example, as shown in FIG. 18, a Web site connected to a TCP/IP transmission circuit network has been built for each of Japanese, English, German, French, and so forth in many languages. A Web server processes the respective languages (ranging from Japanese to French and so forth) in the respective Web sites. Such a Web site is a processing system of hardware having software installed in it, namely, an individual firmware.
This architecture is a structure in which a UNIX workstation or the like to be a Web site is connected to such a digital circuit network as ISDN or the like, and a general-purpose small computer to be used by a translator is connected and further a general-purpose small computer, a UNIX workstation or the like to be used by a translation requester is connected to the digital circuit network.
In this communication network structure, a so-called two-way communication through the Internet communication is performed by a Web browser (application).
In such a multilingual translation service, in a process of multilingual translation of FIG. 19, a master site is downloaded and copied through a TCP/IP transmission circuit network (step S1), and data of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) of its language portion are extracted and converted into language data (step S2). Next, the language data is translated into a destination language (step S3). After this, the translated language is converted into HTML data (step S4). Further, the language HTML data are ported into a copy site and adjusted (step S5). These processes are repeated for necessary languages.
And in a maintenance process of FIG. 20, a Web administrator is notified of change of a master site (step S11), and a language portion needing to be translated is selected (step S12). HTML data of the language portion are extracted and converted into language data (step S13). Next, the language data are translated (step S14) and these translated language data are converted into HTML data (step S15). Next, the language HTML data are ported into a Web site and adjusted (step S16). These steps on and after the step of extracting and converting HTML data of the language portion into language data are repeated for necessary languages. In this way, a multilingual translation service utilizing the Internet is provided.